


Fifteen Hundred Saturdays

by LadyAJ_13



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Conversations, Jealousy, Light Angst, M/M, Morse-era, Period Typical Attitudes, Talking about Morse but he's not actually in the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:40:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23631751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyAJ_13/pseuds/LadyAJ_13
Summary: “You’re Morse’s boss now, then?”Strange shrugs, with a rueful smile. “Much as he allows me to be, anyway.”Right, well, that will do. “You need to fire him.”
Relationships: Peter Jakes/Endeavour Morse
Comments: 22
Kudos: 58





	Fifteen Hundred Saturdays

**Author's Note:**

  * For [imaginationtherapy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginationtherapy/gifts), [Drusilla_951](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drusilla_951/gifts), [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> I don't even know...? For imaginationtherapy, who wanted more jealous!Jakes, and for Drusilla and Jasminitee who helped with the opera stuff. I hope you all like this, I have no idea why I wrote it.
> 
> No Jim-bashing is meant by this, and I hope it doesn't read that way. Jakes is just frustrated, and Jim is written to be roughly in-keeping with old white male attitudes in the 90s. 
> 
> As background, this is related to a fic I will probably never write, where Morse goes off the rails, basically 'testing' the police to see if they're good enough by becoming a criminal himself and feeding them clues. For clarity, he's not done that here. But he might. I'm also using Fitzrove's Soft Like Summer Rain premise in that maybe Morse and Jakes are together, but Hope's still around and when in Wyoming they're all a big happy family.

Thirty years. It’s hardly believable, the old city barely changed except for the clothes on the people. There seemed to be more of them too, certainly more tourists in their brightly coloured raincoats with cameras slung around their necks. But the roads and the buildings… no. They’ll never change. Oxford was formed in the 1200s, and frozen forever.

He was frozen too, when he roamed these streets. He thought he’d been living, but it wasn’t until his shoes left English soil that he really understood. What he’d had, and ignored. What he’d left behind, and what he gained by doing so.

He skips up the steps to the new police station - or, well, not so new anymore. The stone is discoloured in places, the steps scattered with dried-on chewing gum. But it’s new to him, and as he pushes through the doors there’s an odd dissonance in not knowing which way to turn. A uniformed constable steps forward to greet him.

“I’m looking for Strange,” he says, before she can ask what crime he’s here to report. 

“Chief Superintendent Strange?”

Unless Jim’s raised a whole clan of little Stranges, he doubts there are multiple people with the same odd name in one police station. And it’s not much of a surprise that he’d rise to the top - he always was ambitious. He nods.

“I’m afraid he’s bus-”

“He’ll see me.”

“I’m sorry sir, but-”

“He’ll see me,” he insists, pulling on long forgotten superior officer authority like an old coat. “Tell him Sergeant Jakes is here. Or better yet, point me to his office and let me see the look on his face.”

The constable purses her lips, but finally jerks her head to one side and steps smartly down the corridor. “It’s very unorthodox, sir.”

“I won’t tell him who sent me.”

She leads him through what seems like miles of sprawling station, up stairs and round corners until he’s fairly dizzy with it. Finally, she slows, and leaves him at a door with a well-buffed brass nameplate. The door itself is the same as all the others - a light wood painted a nauseatingly inoffensive pale green to give the white walls a hospital-like contrast. He remembers the warm woods and mismatched furniture of Oxford City with a strange sense of nostalgia; it was a million miles from this rabbit warren, where every corner looks the same. 

He knocks.

“Come in.”

Strange has changed, and yet somehow, he’s exactly the same. Older of course, and even from the first split-second Jakes can tell he’s lost some of his geniality. It’s the position, of course. Can’t be everyone’s friend when you’re top dog. But he still slouches the same way, and there’s still that slightly dim look he gets when he’s thinking. Causes a lot of people to underestimate him, that look.

“Jim,” he says, taking the seat opposite Strange’s and sprawling into it. “Mind if I smoke?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it while he waits for Strange to catch up. He doesn't even want one, really, but he’s betting the association will help, and - yep, there it is.

“Jakes?”

“Wotcha.”

“What are you doing here?” Strange shakes his head, and stands. “No, sorry - how are you? Jeez, Jakes-”

He finds himself hauled upwards into a bear hug he wasn’t expecting, and returns it awkwardly, hand with the cigarette held well away from flammable material. He staggers when let go, and pulls his shirt straight. “I’m… well, thanks Jim. You?”

“Yes, yes - well, you can see, Chief Inspector now.”

“Right.” He sees Jim realise he’s hovering, and they both return to their seats. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

“That’s… actually, that makes what I’m here for easier.” No more beating around the bush. Him and Jim - they’d been friendly, back then, but to call them friends would have been a bit of a push. He’s glad he’s good, glad he’s done something he’s proud of, but he can’t say he really cares about the details, and he has no desire to go into the intricacies of thirty years of marriage, children, and cattle farming. “You’re Morse’s boss now, then?”

Strange shrugs, with a rueful smile. “Much as he allows me to be, anyway.”

Right, well, that will do. “You need to fire him.”

Strange chokes on nothing, and he'd enjoy it more if it was a ruse for the reaction, but he’s deadly serious. “Good one, Jakes-”

“I mean it.”

“Fire him? Morse?”

“Yes.”

Strange bristles. “You were my superior once, Jakes, but I run this station now.”

“That’s exactly why-”

“You’ve been gone with no word for three decades. Then you waltz in here and expect me to fire my best inspector? On your say so?”

He snorts. “Best, really?”

“I know you never liked Morse-”

Never liked him. Ha! What a way to put it, to sum up those years of needling each other like rival schoolboys. He’d only seen it for what it really was when he was gone, and found his best quips and biting remarks dying, nowhere to go. He had liked Morse, alright. More than liked him.

“-and yes, he’s still a half-way loose cannon, but he’s got a solve rate up in the high triple digits. He’d have been further up than inspector if he ever put his mind to it, but as it is, he’s my best and most experienced.” Strange pauses, and Jakes taps ash into a handy tray. “Don’t tell him I said that.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“How would you, anyway?” Strange shuffles some papers on his desk, stacking reports and files. His handwriting is as bad as ever, but Jakes has always been adept at the sneakier arts, and reads ‘arson’ and ‘Matthews’ upside down. Then wonders if the world ever really changes. 

“Well I might have mentioned it offhand, like.”

“When?”

“Turns out I don’t hate him, not when there’s an ocean in the way. We kept in touch.”

He’s reminded that Strange is a policeman, and, much to his general annoyance, generally quite a good one, by the way his eyes narrow. He’s trying to work Jakes out, and Jakes has spent thirty years in the company of a loving family and a herd of cows. And while they’re not as dumb as some people make out, they’ve certainly not kept him as sharp as an Oxford policeman.

“He needs out, Jim. Out of the police. But you know he won’t leave, so you’ve gotta cut the strings.”

“You know him well enough to know that, do you?”

Jakes shrugs. That was never in doubt. “Yes.”

Strange shakes his head. “I don’t want to end up in a game of one-upmanship here matey, but even if you have exchanged the odd letter, I think I know him better than-”

“Oh right,” Jakes scoffs. “‘Course. You know him, right Jim? You lived with him for a bit, didn’t you? So of course you know him. You know how he likes his tea, and what he buys for his dinner, and what he looks like first thing in the morning.”

“Well, I did - that was a long time ago, but yes-”

“And because you know him, better than I do, you know all of that and more, right? You know what record he plays on bad days. Bet you hated that, damn Verdi blasting out after a hard case. ‘Cept I know that too, act four, punishment, the troubadour - so there must be something else, something you know that I don’t. Maybe you know where he spends his summer holidays - but no, I know that, ‘cause he’s godfather to my firstborn, and she always used to spend those two weeks dragging him out on the range.”

“Jakes-”

“And you see him every day, don’t you? Or maybe not, but certainly more than I do. You see him all the time, and I just talk to him on the phone every Saturday. Mid-afternoon for him, first thing in the morning for me. It sets up my weekend. He likes calling into the past, you see, tells me what’s already happened.”

Strange is silent, and he’s not sure when he stubbed out his cigarette but he’s certainly not holding it now. He thinks of the bundles of old letters he still keeps, and the way they morphed into stacks of kitschy postcards once the phone calls started. 

“You know my phone bill is my biggest expenditure? Morse’s too, I’d wager. But you know him better. Because you're  _ here, _ no matter that you got a shiny new office off the back of being in his team, off the back of  _ him _ , and then left him behind. Because you two haven’t been for a drink in years, have you? But you know him.”

He scrubs a hand through his hair, suddenly aware he’s no longer in his chair, and the words just keep spilling out. Everything he never meant to say.

“And if you know him better than me, that means you also know what he tastes like. Yeah? First thing, sleepy and lazy, and last thing, sloppy with whiskey. And in between, you know how he likes pushy kisses, how all of that damned focus is like a laser when it turns on you, how it burns. More. You know he’s got a mole on his left hip, and freckles all down his shoulders, and -”

He stops himself just in time. Just before  _ you know what he looks like when he comes.  _ Because Strange doesn’t, and he can’t even allude to it. 

Strange is white as a sheet. He’s outed Morse, and he should care more about that - but if he can’t make Strange understand, there’ll be no Morse at all. There’ll be just a phone ringing out unanswered, and at the other end, a slamming cell door. Or worse. The cold, metallic screech of a morgue cupboard opening.

He leans forward, the desk cool and solid under his sweaty palms. He lets his head hang for a moment, before forcing it up. “He’s cracking, Jim.” He thinks his own voice cracks a bit as he says it, can certainly feel a tightness in his throat that shouldn’t be there. “You know him. He won’t stop. But…”

The fight has left him. He slumps back in his chair. He’s breathing hard, like he’s just chased down a rogue steer, adrenaline flooding away and leaving him wiped. “He didn’t pick up for three Saturdays.”

“And you bought a plane ticket.”

“No. I bought a plane ticket after he did pick up. On the fourth Saturday.”

“Why?”

“He’s going to cross a line.” Probably already has done, he adds silently, but no need to drop Morse in that kind of trouble. He wants him jobless, not arrested. “He’s twisted up. Too much of this, for too long. It’s clouded his judgement.”

“I’ve seen no sign-”

“Jim!” he shouts. “Please,” he adds more quietly. Strange watches the door, but no one knocks. He wonders if they’re used to arguments from in here, if Morse takes him to task and bawls him out and stomps away with his feathers ruffled often enough they all look the other way. “I know him. He’s not okay.”

“I can’t fire him-”

He opens his mouth to argue, and Strange holds up a hand. 

“-without just cause. I’m sorry, but the union would have a field day. It wouldn’t stand.”

Jakes stares at the blue-weave carpet. It’s the industrial kind; designed to hide every stain, hold up under every shoe. He wonders how they test durability; if they have tap dance troupes skipping the light fantastic, or if they round up cattle herds and cram them onto test samples. It’s the same carpet as in a multitude of working buildings the world over - he’s pretty sure they have it in the post office back home. 

How much easier it would have been back in the sixties. Tip the nod to the right man and Morse would’ve been out. Almost was anyway, a couple of times. How might things have been different, if they’d succeeded? Maybe he’d have lived in a world where Morse grew tanned on Wyoming sun and strong on steak and hauling hay bales. Maybe he’d have lived in a world where Morse had given up, slipped silently away until he faded into nothing.

A sigh brings him back into the room. “He’s been building up holiday for years, taking nothing but - but two weeks in the summer. Technically, it’s use it or lose it, but I kept a rough record.”

Strange catches his eye, then looks away. He’s uncomfortable. He can’t look directly at him knowing what he knows, and now he’ll look at Morse that way too. Somehow he’s made everything worse.

“Enforced sabbatical, perhaps. Three months. Some...” Strange trails off, before clearing his throat and soldiering on. “Some sunshine, perhaps abroad. Somewhere with people he knows.”

It’s an effort not to roll his eyes, even as his heart jumps. He nods. 

“He won’t thank you for this.”

He shakes his head. Morse doesn't even know he’s here, but as soon as he sees him - he’s got nowhere else to stay tonight, so it’s Morse’s or a hotel and he can’t pay Oxford prices - he’ll put it together with this news and rail at him until he grows hoarse. It’s a coin toss as to whether it’ll end in stony silence or something rougher.

“Three months,” Strange repeats. “But he’s eligible for early retirement. If he doesn’t want to come back.” 

Or needs to be out for good, he adds silently. Because three months is good, three months is heaven, Morse in his home, in his bed, in the sunlight and the wide open space. But three months is only thirteen Saturdays. They’ve had fifteen hundred Saturdays building up to this. Thirteen might not be enough.

“Get him right, Jakes.”

He nods.


End file.
